Need help against the Byzantines

[gamesguy]

Hi, I'm trying to figure out how I can beat my friend's Byzantine army, I tried like 5 different armies and kept losing over and over.

The settings are 1v1, grassy plains, scale huge, 10k points, and high period. My friend keeps using the same army with like 4 units of Byzantine guard archers, 4 Varagian guards, 4 Dismounted Latinkons, 3 Dismounted Lancers, and a bodyguard unit. This is in Medieval II 1.3, he doesnt have kingdoms.

The problem I'm having is armies that have archers that can outshoot those guard archers like England and Milan get owned by his horde of heavy infantry, and I simply cannot find an army that can beat his heavy infantry horde in meele either.

I tried artillery, they get overrun too fast especially since they're the high period ones. I tried mongols with an horse archer army, but the guard archers just shoot them to pieces.

The best I've done was two units of elephants, they took out like 3 squads of heavy infantry extremely easilly, but all the fire arrows eventually scared them and they ran amok, leaving the rest of my army to get mobbed and die.

I would really appreciate suggestions on how to beat this. It would be easy if it was late period, but as far as I can tell the Byzantines simply has by far the strongest infantry in the high period. I was thinking maybe Portugal with 4 Parvise crossbows, a bunch of swords militia and dismounted portuguese knights, then say 3 Jinetes and a couple of knights of santiago? As a sidenote, are the experience/weapon/armor upgrade options ever worth it? It doesnt seem to do much to the unit's stats and they are so expensive.

[Sodbuster]

It sounds like he rushes you every time right? You need to rush him back. Try going with Denmark. Don't get any archers at all, just bring 4 units of Huscarls, 2 units of chivalric knights or something along those lines, a general, and the rest cheap Danish heavy infantry with some viking raiders thrown in to flank. No sword staff militia or Obudshaers, just axes and swords, and try to use units with shields. Your goal here is to destroy his Latinkon with your Huscarls and other cav while charging his infantry with yours, with the raiders flanking. Go after his archers, general, or help your huscarls with your chivalric knights, and use your general to do whatever seems necessary but try to keep him near your infantry for the morale bonus, and hopefully you will bring enough heavy inf to hold his infantry long enough to finish his cav off. Weapon upgrades for the Huscarls will help finish the Latinkon off that much faster. As soon as you get an opening, charge his infantry's flanks or rear, and don't let his archers get space to fire any more fire arrows. I think with this strategy you should crush him.

[gamesguy]

Sorry I forgot to add those are dismounted Latinkon.

Basically his army consists of 4 archers that also get swords and shields(they're nearly as good as sword and shield militia in meele), and like 11 heavy infantry units plus his general bodyguards as his only cav. And ya, he opens by walking his archers forward, firing as the rest of his army walks into range to charge.

[hitokiri2486]

sounds like you need heavy cavalry. I would bring enough cavalry to take down those varangians and dismounted latinkons; one good charge will completely decimate and route them. If you can use some melee units to pin their front down and charge from the flanks, that would be great. A few units of horse will also do wonders against those archers--I would use upgraded mounted sergeants or hussars against those guys.

8 horse units + general's bodyguard sounds good; the rest can be a mix of heavy infantry and missile troops, emphasis on the heavy infantry so you can fix his front long enough to charge him from the rear or the flank. So if you're England, you can do like 3 Mailed Knights for the archers and 5 English Knights or Demi Cuirassiers for the heavies. Choose heavy infantry that's not necessarily high on the attack, but good on the defense, like armored swordsmen--minimize your infantry losses since their only purpose is to essentially be a big diversion. Or, you could try to smash their units just as much with dismounted english knights, since they are almost on par with the Varangians.

I would say the only extras worth pursuing are the weapon and armor upgrades. Weapon upgrades especially--they actually make a world of difference. Armor if you can get it up there is good too, but save that only for units that will do heavy fighting---like your frontline heavy infantry.

[Sodbuster]

A catapult firing flaming shot from right behind your lines into his giant mass of infantry would work wonders too. The strategy above is good too, just make sure you send some after those archers. 10k is not a lot to work with for heavy cav, but mailed knights and mounted sergeants should work, with a general to fight his general and keep it tied up. Killing his general will be crucial as well, so a unit of mailed knights should probably help that general.

Don't forget to pull your knights back after charging, then charge again and again until they're wavering or routing, or your knights will get chopped up fast.

[townie33]

If you are going to use Denmark, which is a good choice, don't forget that they have one of the best melee cavalry in the War Clerics. They should be able to take out the dis. Lantinkon.

[D.B. Cooper]

Play as the Mongols and use real horse archers.

[France]

Timurids!!! Elephant stomp him to death!

[Viking Prince Olaf]

Spanish Conquistadors along with sword and buckler men with Pavis crossbows with 2 or more musketeers for their armour peircing bullets and LARGE amount of ammo.

My greatest battle ever was with 3 musketeers and facing A full stack of mail and partial plated Danish troops and they masaccured them on top of A hill top and still had 1/4 ammo left with no casualties.....Killed 1000
captured 0......What!! I wasn't in A prisoner mood......

[France]

You could probably get away with an artillery and archers army.

[Viking Prince Olaf]

You could probably get away with an artillery and archers army.

With AI maybe but A human would definatly jump you without melee units to gaurd them.

[Mithrane]

With AI maybe but A human would definatly jump you without melee units to gaurd them.

There are many countries with archers which do as well, if not better in melee than at range. If you use a selection of archers in your army as opposed to all peasant archers, this actually can work, so long as you either control a high point, can keep from being enveloped, or can keep your enemy from gaining the high ground.

As a very very basic example....

Red = Archers with good defensive Melee (Passives, Vikings, etc)
Green = Archers with long range, penetration, or other strong effect (Longbows, crossbows, gunpowder, etc)
Blue = aoe artillery (catapult?)
Orange = standard artillery
Brown = General

Ideally, you'd rather have the front line to be fast firing with a strong defense and attack. The viking archers are a great example, as are the Trezbinoid? archers from Byzantium.

The second line of archers should be the ones who demoralize, decimate defensive melee, or are simply very powerful in one way or another. These are there to counter the enemy's trump cards or wear down their knights.

The artillery in the center is there to pick off main targets (mounted knights, general, other artillery). The artillery on the side is there to break up flanking attacks or, if none come, to give a deadly cross fire which will rip apart masses of incomming infantry.

The general is there to help morale and counter any breaks in the line or large flank attacks by cavalry.

[S-te-Fan]

Use Scholarii . O wait.. you can't...

[Silent Assassin]

I know they are Bysantines Own but if you can recruit the Greek Flamethrowers and let him come one villey of theses can make them all route Yes one volley